Until reading thru the commentary regarding LAME and the --alt-present settings, I'd been using --r3mix. In reading thru that website, the argument for using the -V1 setting was made (I felt rather convincingly) as part of its preset. The --alt-presets use -V2.

I'd like to get some opinions on any possible negative consequences (other than file size) of adding the -V1 switch to --alt-preset. i'm concerned that doing so might introduce something that conflicts with the code-level tuning implemented for this.

I've done some testing and comparisons of my own, and I haven't heard anything negative so far, but I'm more interested in what the theory of this is. I noticed above that someone added -V0 and wound up getting some whoosing at the end of some files.

It may well be that it was decided the best compromise between quality and size was -V2 for the preset, but that if someone wanted to accept the increased file size for the return of the higher average bitrate, it would work.

If the preset is so tuned to -V2 that changing it to -V1 breaks the result, then perhaps the preset should ignore the -V setting. Perhaps it will do so in a future release. At this time, it accepts it.

It was noted over on the MP3Gain thread that -V1 with the --alt-presets is thought to not provide additional quality while at the same time wastes bits and may introduce problems in the 320kbs frames. I tried to go back to R3Mix site, but it's changed now, it reread its argument for -V1.

If I understand correctly, the R3Mix preset was only a shorthand for LAME options, whereas the --alt-presets combine LAME options with source-level code treaking that produce output no combination of swtiches alone can. Is that the gist of it?

In some comparisons I did, it seems like --a-ps produces about an additional 10kbs over --r3mix while --a-pe produces 40.

Of course. Let's not forget though that the cbr and abr modes of the --alt-presets never made use of code level tweaks. They are simply switch aliases (and also have not been tuned even close to that the VBR presets have been). It's no surprise that you can get better quality in some cases then by a different set of switches. VBR is a totally different story though, and I'm much more skeptical about getting better quality than the --alt-preset VBR modes via simple command line switches without very extensive help and motivation from one of the core LAME developers.

That was said by dibrom. I got a question then ... what exactly does -ap cbr <bitrate> do & what do they actually represent code wise? If they do not make use of the code level tweaks ... then they are what just normal code that is just has been shrank so easier to remember & use?

I have always (since ... Jan of this yr when i found out about -r3mix & then later -aps) that the -aps all make use of the code level tweaks.

That was said by dibrom. I got a question then ... what exactly does -ap cbr <bitrate> do & what do they actually represent code wise? If they do not make use of the code level tweaks ... then they are what just normal code that is just has been shrank so easier to remember & use?

That was said by dibrom. I got a question then ... what exactly does -ap cbr <bitrate> do & what do they actually represent code wise? If they do not make use of the code level tweaks ... then they are what just normal code that is just has been shrank so easier to remember & use?

and new: EasyLAME 1.3 (RazorLAME frontend, pre-configured with the alt-presets), now also available in english!

Thanks, CiTay.

I'd like to encourage anybody involved in the "newbie education process" to promote EasyLAME. It's like win32LAME (which was highly popular), except for the fact that it is not r3mix-poisoned.

Q1: I am using razorlame and i encode with --alt-preset standard. I also have downloaded the 3.90.2 lame (exe) that is recommended. Does Easylame offer anything new?

Q2: After you download razorlame and in order to get it to work with lame 3.90.2 you have to overwrite the razorlame.dat file with the one in the lame zip? why is this? what is this razorlame.dat file and what does it do?

A1: Nope, except that you have all the alt-presets as Razorlame presets in EasyLAME.

A2: It has to do with the custom message that lame.exe shows during encoding (the one that points to this forum). Razorlame doesn't recognize that line and stops with an error. The razorlame.dat included in the 3.90.2 zip file adds recognition for that message.

Would it be higher quality to encode with "--alt-preset 320", or with "--alt-preset insane"/"--alt-preset cbr 320"? I'm just curious if the algorithm for abr would be better. Does insane still use joint stereo?

I just did two separate encodes, one with '--alt-preset insane' (supposedly CBR) and the other with '--alt-preset 320' (supposedly ABR). I noticed that the file sizes were practically the same, so I generated CRC-32 and MD5 checksums on one group, and tested them on the other group.. bit-for-bit exact. Should this be happening? Does '--alt-preset 320' switch over to CBR?

I'm using Dibrom's LAME 3.90.2 compile (exe).

When I try anything less than '320' with '--alt-preset', for instance '--alt-preset 319', LAME switches from:

and shows the ABR graphs as it should. It is rather misleading in the instructions (and on the first page of this site) when it says that '--alt-preset <bitrate>' is also for 320 kbit, when it obviously switches to CBR.

So, my question now is, which is higher quality, '--alt-preset 319' or '--alt-preset insane'? Next, if VBR gives higher quality than ABR at higher bitrates (according to the help files), why isn't there a '--alt-preset vbr <bitrate>'? There should be, since '--alt-preset extreme', according to help, only reaches 220-270 kbit.

It stands to reason if you're going to tell LAME to encode at an average bitrate (abr) of 320 and 320 is the maximum bitrate for the encoder, it's only going to encode at 320! Therefore, this would be the same as setting it at --alt-preset insane or --alt-preset CBR 320 (these are the same).

Use abr settings to encode VBR at the average bitrate you specify, which needs to be significantly less than 320 to derive any benefit from using it, namely smaller files. If you're not worried about file size, you may as well use 320 CBR.